Le Monde, France
Obama and the
Return to the Founding Fathers
"The
senator from Illinois put himself in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers of
the United States. … Obama's leitmotif is marked with a seal of hope and
optimism in a union that can be 'perfected.' It is not perfect. It never has
been. … The Philadelphia Convention … drew on a political philosophy that was a
mixture of Christian faith and the spirit of the Enlightenment. It nevertheless
accepted the continuation of slavery …"
By Daniel Vernet
Translated By Kate Davis
March 25, 2008
France
- Le Monde - Original Article (French)
In order to escape
a dangerous association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United
Church of Christ, a man who married him and baptized his children, on March 18
Barack Obama delivered a speech on the relationship between the races in the
United States. It is a speech that has generated attention, admiration and
controversy. The initial reactions were unanimously flattering. An incredibly
gifted orator, the candidate for the Democratic nomination succeeded in
extricating himself from a tough spot without denouncing the man who was a kind
of spiritual guide for him. But a short time later, the analyses were more
severe. The first Black presidential candidate with a chance of making it to the
White House, Mr. Obama had fallen into the trap that he wanted to avoid at all
costs: appearing as a candidate representing a specific community.
An attentive
reading of his text justifies the words of David Eisenhower, a political
scientist and the grandson of the former president of the United States, who
was quoted in the International Herald Tribune: “Obama gives a very
compelling reason as to why this is his time 
.” Without
neglecting the tactical imperatives that prompted his speech, in choosing
Philadelphia, the senator from Illinois put himself in the footsteps of the
Founding Fathers of the United States. His leitmotif is marked with a seal of
hope and optimism in a union that can be “perfected.” It is not perfect. It
never has been. The Philadelphia Convention, which proclaimed independence and
drafted the Constitution, drew upon a political philosophy that was a mixture
of Christian faith and the spirit of the Enlightenment . It nevertheless
accepted the continuation of slavery, which was at the root of the Civil War -
the so-called War of Secession - in the middle of the 19th century.
Barack Obama drew
on this to show that a constant in American history has been the effort to
“narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their
time.” It is not for him to say that the United States is - or even should be -
a “postracial” society. In a book published in 2006 and translated into French
in 2007, The Audacity of Hope (Presses
de la Cite), he refuted this objective. On the contrary, he believes that
Americans haven't really tackled the complexity of race relations and that
prejudice remains with discrimination against Blacks, Latinos and Asians. He
also understands that affirmative action has been nourishing anti-Black
resentment in the White community, where poverty has grown because the middle
class has been buffeted by crisis.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The proposed
remedy is always the same: to improve the union, to rely on "typically
American paths of upward mobility," of which Obama says he is an example -
he who says that Christmas gatherings for his multicultural family are like “a
meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.” In American society, there is no
inevitability to failure. Success is always possible and the hope of making it
never fades, because the Founding Fathers' confidence in the future remains
alive: “This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown
that it can always be perfected,” insists the presidential candidate.
This speech in Philadelphia is a mix of political
aptitude and candor. Expressed by a man of color who has succeeded, his faith
in America is particularly suited to rallying those who thrive along with those
who hope; White, Black or immigrant. And particularly suited to transcending
the partisan divide. The race to the White House still has a long way to go,
but Barack Obama has demonstrated that he is at least worthy of his ambition.
CLICK HERE FOR FRENCH
VERSION
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US March
29, 4:29am]
